


step into the sun

by allusan



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Connor is alive, F/F, Group therapy AU, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety, Zoe-centric, also Connor is not Zoe's brother, for the purposes of this fic Heidi is not Evan's mother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allusan/pseuds/allusan
Summary: She and the girl sitting across from her were outnumbered; the other three boys introduced themselves as Jared, Connor, and Evan, though mental illness and the Y-chromosome were their only discernible common characteristics. Connor was an eyeliner pencil away from full emo, Jared was short and a little weird, and she only noticed Evan because he sat exactly as she did: slumped into himself, silent, like he was protecting himself physically from an emotional threat. The one non-white member introduced herself as Alana in a strong, smooth tone, though behind it Zoe could hear insecurity so deep it was almost panic.





	step into the sun

Her fingertips found the hem of her sweater subconsciously and she twisted it between them, alternating sides with satisfying symmetry. She heard people coming and going around her in the waiting room and avoided eye contact with the few who stayed in the chairs to her right, most of whom rested in similar positions: hunched over, looking down at a phone or a book or their shoes, exhibiting various degrees of discomfort. In her usual fashion she had arrived ten minutes early, and watched them trickle in.

“You guys can come in!”

A woman’s voice interrupted her train of thought. She saw the surrounding teenagers rise from their chairs to trudge down the hall, so she quickly stood and followed them into a small room. At its centre was a cluster of individual desks pushed together to make a rectangular table, and its four walls were covered with motivational quotes and art pieces. One in particular which read _the best way out is always through_ caught her eye, and in admiring it she neglected to notice that the other four had joined a smiling blonde at the table. She awkwardly hurried to the remaining free seat.

“Hello everybody,” the warm woman greeted, and received a chorus of unenthusiastic _hello, hey, hi_ and terse smiles in response. “We’ve got fresh blood this week, this is Zoe – you guys introduce yourselves as we do homework check, okay? I’m Heidi, welcome to skills group.”

With all eyes on her, Zoe sank further into her chair and reclaimed the seam of her sweater with her thumb and index finger. The ritual was carried out faster and more urgently than before, a compulsion she’d involuntarily developed as a substitute for picking at her cuticles until they bled. She and the girl sitting across from her were outnumbered; the other three boys introduced themselves as Jared, Connor, and Evan, though mental illness and the Y-chromosome were their only discernible common characteristics. Connor was an eyeliner pencil away from full emo, Jared was short and a little weird, and she only noticed Evan because he sat exactly as she did: slumped into himself, silent, like he was protecting himself physically from an emotional threat. The one non-white member introduced herself as Alana in a strong, smooth tone, though behind it Zoe could hear insecurity so deep it was almost panic.

“How did the behavioural experiments go,” asked Heidi, and Alana pulled an organized, colour-coded binder from the backpack behind her seat. Jared pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and smoothed its edges, then Evan unfolded his; Connor remained motionless, biting the inside of his cheek with defiance to which the psychologist paid no mind.

Alana read first. “I initiated conversation with three new acquaintances at school yesterday. The belief to be tested was that people find me overbearing and won’t want to talk to me, and that I would seem rude by rambling. My anxiety beforehand was a 60.”

“And?” Heidi looked up from her notepad to encourage her.

“I think it was okay. I still talked a lot to cover the anxiety, but it went down to a 30 when I was done.”

“That’s what I like to hear! Nice job, I know that’s hard for you.” A modest smile painted Alana’s face briefly before she looked down at her paper, uncomfortable with but grateful for the praise. Evan went next and Zoe tuned out, her soft-focused vision fixated on memory and not tangible sight. She continued to pinch the cuffed sleeve of her sweater evenly, tracing something with the fingertips of her other hand as if chasing an imaginary mouse down her arm and over her crossed legs. She moved slowly, savouring the pressure in the nerve-dense pad of her middle finger as she went, to scratch an obsessive-compulsive itch. Jared reported something at school, Connor about his parents, and by the time Heidi turned to her Zoe was completely entranced.

“Zoe, since you don’t have the page, would you like to share a success from the past week? It doesn’t need to be anything big, just something you did that made you feel proud.” Heidi’s invitation to speak interrupted a ritual Zoe knew she could never satisfy anyway, so she bit her lip in concentration.

“Um, I went to school every day this week,” she offered quietly, and the woman grinned.

“That’s fantastic! It’s a stressful time of year, I bet we can all relate to that.” She nodded to the group and most were unresponsive, but Alana’s lips twitched outward in a half-smile. “Going on, today we’ll be building hierarchies to prepare for exposures; usually we don’t add new members during this module because it can be a bit jarring, but I’m told you’ve done these before.”

Zoe nodded as Heidi distributed two sheets: one explaining the difference between a behavioural experiment and an exposure, and the other a template for one’s own ‘anxiety ladder’.

The sharp _clack!_ of Alana’s binder popping open startled Zoe and instantly elicited the urge to press her right ear, as the sound resonated more acutely in her left and thus threw off her symmetry; she tried to do so subtly, playing it off as an itch on her neck, but ultimately gave in and palmed her entire left lobe with significant pressure. The urge subsided - her embarrassment did not. The others seemed not to notice or, if they did, care about the unconventional reaction, fixated on their sheets as a means of avoiding contact.

Heidi carried on with the lesson, attuned to but not publicly commenting on Zoe’s compulsions.

\--

“How are you?”

Zoe curled around the throw pillow she clutched to her chest. The sofa in her therapist’s office was plush and cozy, more home-y than her previous clinic, and had nearly swallowed her when she sat in its centre at her first appointment; now a seasoned veteran on her third week of treatment, she leaned against its armrest across from the specialist. “I’m okay, I guess. How are you?”

He leaned forward to cross his legs. “I’m well, thanks. How was your first week of group?”

“It was good,” she replied.

“'Good’?”

“I mean, it wasn’t bad, so it was good,” reasoned Zoe, and the man smiled.

“You know, there’s more to ‘good’ than an absence of bad.”

She puzzled over that for a moment. Her definition of a ‘good day’ had always been a day that was not exceptionally horrible, that was not worse than its predecessor. In a perfect world ‘good’ might stand alone but in hers, neutrality was an attainable goal - and enough, frankly.

“I’ll take what I can get,” she said with a light laugh. Absentmindedly, she picked at a loose feather near the seam of the pillow. Seeing this, the therapist narrowed his eyes with a look just short of amusement; like if he had noticed a child caught in a lie and trying to hide it but wasn’t upset with them, a sort of understanding mixed with compassion and pity.

“Words are incredibly reinforcing… my sense is that you’ve become accustomed to that definition of good. Correct me if I’m wrong: in your mind, a lack of conflict is happy. That’s fine for your day to day,” he explained slowly, making small hand gestures to demonstrate his point, “ _and,_ as you go through life, there will always be conflict. It will be easier to manage, and you’ll be better equipped to do so, but there will always be something – so if you leave my office with the unchallenged belief that _good_ means _not bad,_ I will have set you up for failure.”

Zoe’s brow furrowed as he gave her a moment to digest his words.

“In other words: good is not a state, it’s a perspective. It can’t be conquered, it is not permanent, it is a balance of good and bad.”

He paused.

“Got a little more than you bargained for from telling me what I want to hear, huh?”


End file.
